hangin 'round

We're having a pretty sweet day today. Sawyer has been pretty ornery at times but he's eating better and also napping not bad. The number of smiles and squeals is also growing exponentially which we are all loving. Here are some pictures of Sawyer today (scars and all).


Caution: this next picture is ridiculously cute...


Last night was a little like the picture below. Corinne guessed that Sawyer's longest stretch of sleep was 45 min. Here's hoping tonight is better. We're sure it will be.


We have so much to be thankful for! Not the least of these being that Sawyer's surgery is done, it went really well, our family is home and together, and he seems to be healing well.

Home

Sawyer and I arrived home on the 1pm ferry. He is feeling pretty well I think. I am pretty tired but glad to be home. The incision on his head is healing well and the swelling seems to be going down. He hasn't been eating (well, drinking his formula) though. He had about 4oz all day yesterday and only 4oz so far today. He is obviously not on IV anymore so it is important that he drinks or we'll end up in emergency for another IV. . . . so if you could pray for that that'd be great!! Thanks again for all of your love!

Today

Today has been ok. There hasen't been very much swelling. . .well there has been quite a bit but not as much as I thought there would be. . .he can still see out of his eyes! This morning was good. This afternoon has been hard. Sawyer has been very uncomfortable. They tried lowering his morphine and it was evident that he was very uncomfortable, so after about an hour they turned it back up. I think he is sleeping right now while Anika is giving me a little breather. This afternoon was really hard for me. Kirsten came for a visit right at the perfect time this afternoon. Sorry for the random thoughts, I'm tired. Cory may write more later. For now, thanks for all your prayers, they are working!!! Please keep them coming!!!

For those of you whom we missed on the email. . . .

Cory's email to family and friends Tuesday evening. . .


Hello family and friends,

I just got off the phone with Corinne. Here's a summary of how everything has gone over the past 24 hours (sorry if this is review for some of you).

Corinne, Sawyer and Mom Isaak got to the hospital yesterday at 9:00. Sawyer's surgery was scheduled for 11:20 but the surgery before his was taking longer than expected. Sawyer was getting quite cranky but settled down nicely right around 11:20. Not a coincidence from our perspective! Sawyer was taken into surgery at 1:15. It took the doctors more than 2 hours to get an arterial line set up (it was eventually set up by a cardiac doctor that they called in). Although the surgery was only scheduled to take about an hour and 15 minutes the doctor only came out at about 5:00 to let Corinne know that everything had gone well. She finally got to see Sawyer at 7:40, a very long time from all of our perspectives.

Sawyer is doing well. The surgery was successful in that the doctor was even able to do an additional step in the surgery that is purely cosmetic and only done if things are going well. He did not need a blood transfusion and came out of the anesthetic well. He drank 4oz of sugar water immediately after getting back to his room and also had three 4oz bottles through the night (without showing any signs of nausea) which is a great sign.

The swelling has also been relatively low so far. Although it's hard to tell under the bandages his face has not swollen too much yet. The nurses say that his eyes may swell shut today which would be hard but it hasn't happened yet (here's hoping it doesn't). His pain has seemed reasonable. They did give him some extra morphine last night when his heart rate was rising a bit but that seemed to be effective and he relaxed quite soon after. He's been doing normal baby things like shaking his toys and enjoying Corinne playing with him. His heart rate has also been going down when she sings to him which is very cool.

Today Corinne and Sawyer are mostly relaxing. Sawyer is sleeping (usually in Corinne's arms or holding onto her hand) and resting and eating well. He's starting to tug on the gauze covering the top of his head and itching his face a bit (itching is normal after anesthetic and while on morphine). At the time I'm writing this message the doctor hasn't been by to check on Sawyer today.

I have some pictures from yesterday that I thought I'd share with you all. It's just a shutterfly link, so I hope it works for all of you. Click here to go to the shutterfly album. I've attached a few pictures from the album in case it doesn't work for you.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. Please feel free to email this message to anyone that I've missed (I'm not working from a list so it's certainly possible that I missed lots of people).

Peace, and apologies for the long email,

-COry (for Corinne and the boys)

Tomorrow

(I'm not at home so I had to steal this picture from Anika's blog-thanks!)
Well, I went for all of the pre-op stuff at Children's Hospital today and only cried once! They had someone who was just learning in the lab take Sawyer's blood and he cried . . . a lot, that made me cry too. But we were better as soon as we could hold each other! I feel pretty good about tomorrow. I got a few questions answered, know when and where to be in the morning, bathed Sawyer with a special sponge, put him to bed and now it is just time to wait. Sawyer's surgery is tomorrow at 11:20am and should last for an hour and 15 minutes. It should be about an hour after that that we can see him. My mom is going to be with us. (Thanks Mom, I wouldn't want to do it without you!) I will try to get a blog up and let you all know how it went as soon as I can. . . thanks for your prayers!!!!

Parenting Within Christian Community

Yesterday evening we had the privilege of dedicating Sawyer at The Place. One of the verses that we chose for him is Isaiah 58:10+11. It says "Feed the hungry and help those in trouble, then your light will shine out from the darkness and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon. The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring" (NLT). The verse speaks both about living a life that is focused outward and about God's provision for us.

Our desire for Sawyer is that he would come into relationship with Christ, seek to know Him and live his life being an expression of Christ's love in the world. We believe that raising him to be this type of man requires a commitment on our part and on the part of our community.

Dedicating Sawyer is a public commitment by us as parents to raise Sawyer in the way God teaches us to. At the same time our community was committing to hold us accountable to that goal and to be involved with us in the process of raising Sawyer. That involvement started almost immediately when we had the privilege of having the leaders of the church pray for Sawyer's health, his surgery and his recovery, during the service. We are feeling the impact of everyone's prayers in the peace that we're experiencing as we start off this week. There's a lot on our minds and we're anxious sometimes but we're trusting God and feeling at peace knowing that we're in good hands.


Today Corinne and Sawyer left for the mainland to get the pre-op stuff done for Sawyer's surgery tomorrow. We have a challenging week ahead but it will be made considerably easier by two things. The first is the support of our families. My Mom is out in Victoria to help me hang out with Tyler and Riley, and Corinne's parents are helping Corinne out at the hospital. The second is the support of our Christian community at The Place and elsewhere.

Thanks to everyone for your support in its various forms! We'll keep you posted on Sawyer's progress.

Fun Pictures

Anika and Jonathan came over for the night Friday night and we had lots of fun with them. Today the boys went to their first T-ball "game". We took about 200 pictures. . . .here is a "small" sampling.









Afterward we played at the playground.










Sawyer's first time on a swing. I'm not sure if it was the swing that he liked or the funny sounds that I was making.

Little Gifts

So today I went clothes shopping, with my three boys. An adventure. However, bringing them along today provided me with a special blessing that I wouldn't have received if I didn't bring them. As I was trying on several different clothing items the boys kept saying, "Wow Mom, you are so beautiful". They even said it when I was standing there in my underwear! Now right now I am really frustrated with my body, I don't have time to work out and I don't look like I want to so the statements that the boys were making were 100% different than the thoughts that were occuring in my own head. Thanks boys for loving me for me. What a blessing!!!

Some Thoughts and Pictures

Sawyer's surgery is next Tuesday. I've explained to Tyler and Riley that right now Sawyer has an oval shaped head but that for his brain to have room to grow he needs a circle shaped head. I've told them that Mommy and Sawyer will be going to the hospital for a few days and Grandma will stay with them and Daddy. Today, sort of out of the blue Tyler says, "How will they make Sawyer's head a circle? I don't want them to cut him. That would hurt him." I agree. Most of the time I'm okay with this whole thing but every once in a while tears well up (and overflow). Thanks for praying! Here's a few shots from a couple of minutes ago.

Two "Weekends Away"

The last couple of weekends Cory and I have traded as little weekends away. Last weekend Cory and his friends Anton and Malcolm hiked the Juan de Fuca trail. They had a great time, I'll try to get some pictures from him and post them.

The weekend before that I volunteered for the weekend at Operation Trackshoes. What a weekend!! This was my third year volunteering and I would definitely recommend this weekend to anyone and everyone. This weekend is a sports festival for the citizens of British Columbia who have a mental disability. Is is incredible. My favorite is watching the hurdles, people are so creative with how to deal with those hurdles in their paths. It is also great to see how everyone cheers on each other, just doing their best, however that looks. The weekend of Trackshoes it poured and poured and poured and as I passed one lady she looks up at me, rain dripping off of her plastic poncho and says, "I'm so happy. I don't know if I've ever been this happy, I'm so happy that I just can't stop giggling, I haven't stopped all day". Not only are there all sorts of Special Olympics style athletic events, there are fancy banquets, dances, karaoke. . . . The volunteer opportunities are endless and so rewarding. . . (there are about 600 volunteers to make this happen every year) there are track officials, counsellors, support staff and nurses (Jonathan I think you'd love this event and you'd be the first male nurse!! You should come next year June 13-15 2008, think about it!!!) Also, for my friends out there who could be competitors in this event, do everything you can to participate, it would be the highlight of your year! So, despite having a morning wake-up call of 5:30am I really felt recharged to do my normal days at home again. Here is a link to a story run by the Victoria Times Colonist about Trackshoes this year.

Here's the scoop. . . . beware this is a LONG blog!

First of all, thank you so much for praying for Sawyer and our family. It feels so good to know that there are so many people praying for him!!!!

I took Sawyer to see Dr.Steinbok at the neurosurgery clinic yesterday morning. He did a really good job of explaining to me what has happened to Sawyer's head. He has what is called Sagittal Suture Craniosynostosis. He used to skulls to show me where the bones have fused and why. I will try to relay that to you.

From what they know now the bones fused because he was "lodged" in one position for the majority of my pregnancy. I knew this as I could very obviously feel him staying head down on my right side for at least the last 5 months of pregnancy. After I delivered him the nurses were also able to tell that he had spent a lot of time on the right side as my uterus was misshapen. Weird, eh?? The fusing actually likely happened in-utero.

I've taken info from some websites that explain it the same way that the doctor did to me.

What is Craniosynostosis (CRAY-nee-o-SIN-os-Toe-sis)

To allow for rapid brain growth, your baby's skull cap is made up of five bones, held together by a fibrous-like material called "sutures". Normally, they remain open as long as the brain grows, which gives the brain room needed to grow in all directions.

If any of the sutures close or fuse before the brain has finished growing, the condition known as craniosynostosis occurs. Other terms used to describe this problem include: synostosis, or cranial stenosis. Premature closure can take place before birth or at any time until the brain stops growing.

Because the brain is growing normally, it will take the path of least resistance which will result in a misshapen head or face.

Sagittal (SAJ-ut-ul)

The sagittal suture is located on top of the head extending from the soft spot to the back of the head. This is the most common type of craniosynostosis, occurring in three to five infants of every 1,000 live births. This is also most commonly found in males. Because the brain cannot grow or expand sideways, it is forced to grow forward and backward leading to the forehead protrusion, narrowing of the temples and an elongated head. This condition is known as scaphocephaly (SKAF-o-Sef-a-lee).

Here is a link to a site that shows you a bit of what is going on with Sawyer. "Case 1" looks just like his head looks now.

In order to correct this Sawyer has been booked for surgery June 26 at Children's Hospital in Vancouver. Dr.Steinbok will be performing the surgery.

Dr. Steinbok explained to me all of the different incisions that they would be making. They end up cutting pieces of bone right out of his head and resahping them and then putting them back into his head. Without the skull to show you it is kinda hard to explain what and where they are cutting. All of the cutting happens on the back half of his head though.

The "traditional" operation is carried out by making a scalp incision from ear-to-ear, mobilizing the scalp to expose the skull, total or sub-total skull removal, which is followed by reshaping and replacement of the skull with a variety of materials.

This surgery usually takes a few of hours and the biggest risk is that in 10% of cases done at Children's Hospital in Vancouver (the lowest percentage in the world!!!) the baby will need a blood transfusion during the procedure. Sawyer will need to stay in the hospital for 2-3 days post-op and there will be a bed for me beside his bed so I will not be leaving his side!

We are so relieved and thankful to our parents for the abundance of help and support that they have been and will be :) Cory's mom is flying out June 23 and staying at our place until July 1!!! This will allow me to go to Vancouver and be a complete peace that my family in Victoria is being well looked after. My parents will be doing some taxiing around of Sawyer and I on the mainland as well as being at the hospital with me while Sawyer is in surgery. THANK-YOU!!!

So, I think that's it. Thanks so much for your continued prayers, especially on June 26 during his surgery. Oh, we are having Sawyer dedicated at church on Sunday June 23 and would love to see you there!

(doesn't he look like a happy baby?? That's 'cause he is!! It is so fun and easy being a mom to such a contented baby. He sleeps well, eats well, is ready to smile at anyone who pays attention to him (especially his brothers). . . . I love him so much!)

Another Update

Just wanted to let you know that we spent the weekend on the mainland. We had a great time with my family as well as some really good friends. We got to see Harry Connick Jr in concert and that was fabulous! Today I took Sawyer to Children's Hospital for a consultation with Dr.Steinbok. He's the head of neuro-surgery there and the man that will be doing Sawyer's surgery. I will try to post tomorrow about the visit but thought I should at least let you know that the surgery is booked for Tuesday June 26. We feel at peace about this but please keep us in your prayers, especially my baby. Thanks.